ACRL College & Research Libraries News

Association of College & Research Libraries

News from the Field

Acquisitions

•Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachu-setts, has acquired two collections of note. The university library has received the first installment of a gift of Urdu books from Pakistani President Zia ul- Haqq. The gift was made on behalf of the people of Pakistan in recognition of the contributions made by Harvard Professor Annemarie Schimmel to the study of Urdu literature and Indo-Muslim culture. The books that comprise the first installment of the gift include a 13-volume set of the Urdu journal Nugush, devoted to the study of the prophet Muhammad. The remaining installment of the gift will be selected with Professor Schimmel’s approval.

The university’s Eda Kuhn Loeb Music Library has acquired a collection of more than 175 books relating to Beethoven. The collection was the gift of the university’s Fanny Peabody Professor of Music Emeritus Elliott Forbes. The books formed Forbes’ working collection, and enhance what is already a considerable collection of works about the composer available in the university’s music library.

•Louisiana State University’s Hill Memorial Li-brary, Baton Rouge, has received the senate and personal papers of U.S. Senator Russell B. Long (D-LA). The collection contains more than 740,000 items, including correspondence, speeches, press releases, photos, and other political memorabilia. The papers were a gift from Long, who will retire in 1986 after 38 years in the Senate. In addition to the papers of the senator, the gift includes valuable materials regarding the political career and death of Long’s father, Huey P. Long, who was assassinated in 1935. The elder Long had been governor of Louisiana and, at the time of his death, a member of the U.S. Senate. The collection includes the only three known copies of the coroner’s report of the death of Carl Weiss, Long’s reputed assassin, who was killed by Long’s bodyguards after the assassination.

•The United Theological Seminary Library,Dayton, Ohio, has received the collections of two prominent American church historians, Sidney E. Mead and Paul H. Eller. The Mead collection reflects Mead’s special interest in church history as it relates to the intellectual, social and cultural history of America, while the Eller collection concerns the former Evangelical Church and the Church of the United Brethren in Christ.

•The University of Missouri, Columbia Li-braries has acquired the Anthony C. DeBellis Collection of Italian Literature. The collection contains the work of distinguished poets, historians, scholars and philosophers in contemporary editions from the 16th to the 19th century. The collection, a gift from the Friends of the University Libraries, is named for a former professor of Romance languages at the university.

•The University of Texas at Austin acquired three major collections in 1984. The papers of mathematicians Clifford Ambrose Truesdell III and Raymond L. Wilder were acquired by the Archives of American Mathematics, a collection administered by the university’s General Libraries. The Truesdell and Wilder papers include manuscripts of writings, research and lecture notes. Truesdell is a professor of rational mechanics at Johns Hopkins University and Wilder is a member of the mathematics faculty at the University of Michigan.

The university’s Eugene C. Barker Texas History Center has received the archives of the Armadillo World Headquarters, the Austin, Texas concert hall that served as a showcase for the state’s musical talent during its heyday in the 1970s. The collection includes biographies and photographs of hundreds of performers, from Texas’ Asleep at the Wheel to Frank Zappa. It also includes promotional materials, contracts, and financial records, as well as records and demo tapes. A recent acquisition of Texas poster art supplements the archives with two hundred examples of the concert posters that heralded the appearances at the hall of the nation’s most celebrated performers. The archives were donated to the Barker Center by Armadillo president Hank Alrich and Texas Music Association President Mike Tolleson.

The Middle East Collection of the university’s General Libraries has acquired 3,360 volumes from Egypt, Turkey, and the Arab Gulf States. The collection includes government publications, pre-1962 Egyptian imprints, copies of national development plans and other planning documents, statistical materials, diplomatic studies, and literary and religious works. Many of the acquired volumes were gifts. The volumes were collected by the Middle East Collection head librarian Abazar Sepheri during a month-long visit to the region.

• The University of Washington Libraries, Seat- tle, has acquired the papers of Seattle poet Richard Hugo (1923-1982). The papers, which reflect Hugo’s later life and work, include notebooks, correspondence, photographs, and drafts of poems, essays, and novels. Hugo studied with Theodore Roethke, lived in Seattle until 1963, and taught creative writing at the University of Montana, Missoula, from 1963 until 1982. He edited the Yale Series of Younger Poets from 1977 to 1982. Two of his published works, which include 14 poetry collections, a novel, and a collection of essays, were nominated for the National Book Award.

Grants

•The Center for Research Libraries, Chicago, has received a Title II-C grant of $145,000 to preserve ethnic newspapers in its collection. The funds will be used to film a number of newspaper files and to gather information that will enable the center to plan future individual and cooperative preservation efforts related to the newspapers. The filming portion of the project will focus on ethnic newspapers from Central, Eastern and Southern Europe. The center holds 241 such newspapers, only 90 of which have already been preserved on microfilm.

•Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, has re- ceived a gift of $50,000 from alumnus Floyd R. Newman to establish an archival fund. The fund will provide for the preservation of papers and memorabilia of Cornell students who came to the university prior to 1920. The archive will particularly document the social and educational life of Cornell students in that era.

•Harvard University’s Widener Library has re- ceived a $500,000 challenge grant from the Kresge Foundation to install a climate control system in the stacks (ten levels which house over 3 million books and periodical volumes) and upgrade its electrical system.

•The Northeast Document Conservation Cen- ter (NEDCC), Andover, Massachusetts, has received a grant from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission to produce an administrative manual for preservation microfilming in libraries and archives. The project is also supported by a partnership with the Association of Research Libraries, which is funded by a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

•Oberlin College, Ohio, has been granted $500,000 by the Pew Memorial Trust to install an online cataloging system in the main library and its three branches. The total cost of the online catalog will be nearly $1.5 million. It will replace an automated circulation system installed in the main library almost ten years ago.

•The Polytechnic Institute of New York, Brook- lyn, has received a grant of $500,000 from the Pfizer Foundation for the construction of a new high- tech electronic library and information center. The library will be the core of a $500 million, 16 acre, academic/industrial research park to be codeveloped by Forest City/Microtech Associates and the Institute’s Metrotech affiliate. The project will integrate Polytechnic’s downtown Brooklyn campus, its New York State Center for Advanced Technology in Telecommunications, new laboratory and computer facilities, and a landscaped commons with commercial space for technology- oriented companies. Construction will begin in 1987. The new library will be named the Bern Dib- ner Library and Information Center in honor of a 1921 electrical engineering graduate.

•Radcliffe College, Cambridge, Massachu- setts, has been awarded a grant of $750,000 by the Pew Memorial Trust to help finance the expansion and renovation of the Schlesinger Library, a project with an estimated total cost of $3.4 million. The renovation will double the space the library now occupies. Among the planned improvements are new reading rooms, additional open stacks, climate-controlled storage areas, a new security system, and improved access for the handicapped.

•The Rochester Institute of Technology, New York, has received a pledge of $225,000 toward the construction of a new library wing from the Frank M. Barnard Foundation. The new wing of the Wallace Memorial Library will house the Bernard C. Middleton Book Collection, one of the finest collections on bookbinding, as well as RIT’s Melbert B. Cary Jr. Graphic Arts Collection. The enlarged space will allow the library to display materials and hold special binding and graphics exhibitions on an expanded scale.

•The University of Illinois, Urbana, has re- ceived a planning grant of $26,878 from the National Endowment for the Humanities. The grant supports an international planning conference for a traveling exhibit of Motley designs. Motley is the corporate name used by three British costume designers who have dominated the field of Shakespearean costume design in England since the 1920s. The firm has designed costumes for productions at the Shakespeare Memorial Theater at Stratford-on-Avon, the Old Vic Theater in London, and the National Opera. The firm is named for the brightly patterned clothing worn by court jesters in the works of Shakespeare. A national advisory committee is being convened to plan the exhibit.

•The State University of New York at BuffaloLaw Library has received a grant of $13,600 from the Western New York Library Resources Council for a serials project. The primary purpose of the project is to complete and make corrections in the Union List of Serials database.